Friday, July 29, 2016

Dev update #19

Phone compatiblity (beta channel)

Making VRidge compatible with every kind of hardware is challenging task. We've been fixing phone hardware specific issues since the first release and we successfully got couple of hundred models working without major problems (other than heat generation).

But there are still some models that require our attention. The most common ones are

Asus Zenfone 2 (or other Intel chipset phones)

Galaxy S4 (some variants)

Huawei Honor 4C and P8 Lite (and possibly more Kirin chipset phones)

Redmi Note 2 and 3 (and more MediaTek Helio X10 chipset phones)

Thanks to some tips from cgutman (author of Android's well-known Moonlight) we now have some knowledge why some problems are happening and how to fix them. Moonlight is known to work great on nearly all Android devices and this is an example for us on how to make great streaming app.

This is only small subset of all the chipsets out there

In this beta update we bring many fixes targeted for specific models.We don't expect that everything will now start magically working because it's only first wave of the fixes but we are also adding something that might be really helpful to catch all the streaming and rendering bugs in the future - detailed logging mode.

Detailed logging mode (beta channel)

If you experience high streaming aritfacting and/or crashing and you have one of the devices listed in paragraph above please go to mobile app settings -> Diagnostics and enable diagnostic mode. This will log many VRidge events to a log file stored on your mobile (up to 5MB, don't worry about device space). There is also a button that will simply send all stored events with your GPU & OS info to us. There is no personal information sent - you can review the information sent by tapping [See logs] before sending.

Example diagnostic log

Fixed update failing because of Steam (stable channel)

This is very small fix but we are pushing it into stable channel. Some of you were getting failed updates because Steam was running in the background with a file lock on our driver.

No more "update failed" without a reason

GearVR edition update

The GearVR development is going really well. We ported large majority of our codebase and we already have internal testing version that streams and uses GearVR sensors. It's not a 100% promise but we hope to have a publicly testable version later in August.

Remember that VRidge purchase is universal unlock. If you bought the unlimited version, you'll get GearVR edition too. No need to pay multiple times for the same product on different platforms.

Beta discount extended

When we released our app we gave all beta testers a discount of 50% valid until one month after release. Unfortunately due to some unforeseen circumstances we weren't able to deliver updates as fast as we wanted so we decided to extend the discount until at least GearVR edition is out in stable form.

What's next?

GearVR development will continue and we hope to receive many diagnostics logs from you with the new logging option so we can have a better insight on what is happening in your device when VRidge fails. We'll also explore additional payment options because there are many people that can't use PayPal. iOS edition is scheduled for development after GearVR edition is out.

The jitter in gyroscope-less setup is really hard to counter. Gyroscope is the main source of stability in the tracking data and filtering to remove the noise will lead to major delay. We'll explore some options for gyroscopeless phones but I don't think there's a big chance it will work in way that doesn't cause motion sickness.

Our plans & timetable are written on office whiteboard. I agree that we need to create more publicly presentable roadmap. :/

TL;DR: of upcoming weeks:

One dev 100% assigned to GearVR edition. The other dev (me) is currently trying to locate problems with some phone models. I'll spend one or two more weeks on this trying to fix as much as possible within a reasonable timeframe.

We also want to add additional payment method because there are lots of people that can't use PayPal. After this I'll try to focus on more encoding/decoding optimizations - less heat on the phone side, better quality (h265 when supported).

Accurate time estimates are a problem even for regular business development. For project like this (new industry, new methods) it's even harder to tell how long development will take. We currently estimate to have things listed above ready in a matter of weeks, not months.

It's pretty weird though, the drift is no where to be found at the beginning and then all of a sudden get 10° to the left (head turns right), it just comes in large batches. Kinda leads me to believe it's software (maybe the sensor fusion Google uses). Magnetometer (responsiveness) is too laggy to be worth getting rid of drift.

There are many apps that "calibrate sensors" on Google Play but most of them don't work because sensors calibration is really device specific so it's hard to recommend something that actually works. There are a lot of garbage apps in that category. :/

We only know how to re-calibrate on some Samsung Galaxy devices (it's a system level tool so it actually works). We didn't have problems with our 5X gyro so we didn't do a lot of research on that topic.

Hi, I have see Exynos4 on the picture. I have a Galaxy S3 I9300 with that Chipset laying around. Overclocked to 1,7ghz and I think 700mhz GPU with CM13(Android 6). Will there be a chance to use it with Riftcat or is this hopeless. I hopefully try it every update :-)

The S3 has a 720p screen, all games will look like minecraft :) My LG G3 is overheating and shutting down within a few minutes like many other devices. I think with a high overclock your device will instantly melt.

oh! I didn't know about the revive project! (I delete my post to modifying it and my sadness about ALien isolation I wanna play it in VR !!!!!)anyway this was my post:"I have a LG G4 and for the overheating problem I solved leaving a bit open the closing so the air don't get hot. The experience its nice, but I think that they have to focus on the oculus compatibility past and forth. There are some good title that uses sdk before 0.6 and other that goes after 0.8.Anyway...GREAT JOB !!!"

...that's cool! the thing that its a bit annoying is the setup for NO VR games. You have to run a a bunch of softwares together to have the experience! like tridef3d + trinus + moonlight....Yesterday I tried tridef + moonlight and for the head tracking my air mouse remote on my head! felt a bit stupid with that on my head but works!

Fabian, you are right. It has a 720p Display. I used it with Elite Dangerous SBS with Moonlight. That was not that bad with a few Hacks. I also own a LG G4 and overheating is not a Problem for me. I build a 5v fan in my bobovr. So the phone is really, really cool.

When you add your fan to your configuration you should add it as far as possible from your phone. I had much drift because of the magnetic field from the fan. To avoid this I have build a canal for it and added the fan on the top. Its build about 3 cm over the button to open the front of bobovr. I recognized that´s not enough. I will use a flexible tube in the future for that. Then I can mount the fan much higher.For the needed energie I use a 2200 mA battery for the fan and my phone.

Hello, You are using laptop I guess, so please make sure that all games and Vridge are running on discrete GPU. You can check how to do it here: https://support.riftcat.com/hc/en-us/articles/207602859-Black-screen-reconnecting-with-Geforce-M-Series-laptop If problem still exists, please send us logs as described in the article below:https://support.riftcat.com/hc/en-us/articles/208781529

Helo, thanks for this software, it is realy good!I would like to know if this solution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zw_EjC6Iis"edit the file steamvr.vrsettings add "renderTargetMultiplier": 2.0,is the same that if I use render scale in settings of vRidge?

I have a Nexus 5X and no matter what I do, I get crazy artifacting over WiFi. Try 5GHz, but that didn't work for me either. I use USB tether and go into command prompt and use the command IP config to find my IP.

1. Did you try beta version?(https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.riftcat.vridge)

2. Did you contact us at support@riftcat.com? If yes, what is your ticket number? If you didn't, please send us logs as described in section 3 of the article: https://support.riftcat.com/hc/en-us/articles/207602839-Constant-artifacts-floating-blocky-pixels-and-low-performance